When Mark Osborne opened his mail several days ago, he was disappointed to see an attack ad against his friend, who’s running as an Independent for the Alaska State House of Representatives. Even more shocking, the photographer realized that the picture used in the ad was his — taken from a video Osborne had filmed…

Osborne was naturally upset about his photograph being used without his permission for a cause he didn’t support, but instead of quietly stewing or ranting about it on Facebook, he created this fantastic video…

This is a serious crime that’s completely inexcusable…but it’s also exactly what we all wish would happen to the political flyers littering our mailboxes each election season.

Wisconsin Assembly candidate Mike Rorhkaste was contacted Thursday by a Neenah resident who said they saw a postal worker drop a bunch of campaign mailers for him and other local GOP candidates in a dumpster…

According to the Wisconsin Reporter, a USPS supervisor immediately responded after Rorhkaste contacted them, taking photos and actually getting into the dumpster to recover the mail for the next day’s delivery.

An investigation by the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General revealed that the mail carrier felt overwhelmed by the 879 mailers and dumped them to avoid delivering them, not because of their political nature.

Fortunately, there’s only one more day before we don’t have to worry about this again — at least not for the next year and a half.

True to form, Joe Biden recently spoke first and thought through his comment moments later.

When Harvard’s student body vice president addressed him at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics Thursday, the colorful politician had some candid words of commiseration for a fellow VP…followed, of course, by a profuse clarification for the press that he was only joking.

Hundreds attended a rally in Harrisburg, PA earlier today to support major changes in Pennsylvania’s hate crime law that would add equal protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens. At the rally, state senator Jim Ferlo introduced a bill he drafted, and he took the opportunity in front of the crowd present, the television audience, and thousands more online to say why this issue is of particular importance to him.

It certainly would have made sense if this explanation had been presented with a tone of concern or even anger. But that’s not how he chose to officially come out…

Here’s his brief comment…

Hundreds of people know I’m gay. I just never made an official declaration. I never felt I had to wear a billboard on my forehead. But I’m gay.

In September 2001, Heather “Lucky” Penney was a young, inexperienced F-16 pilot with the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard. As the first female pilot in her squadron, it was a dream come true; her father had served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, so when Congress opened up combat aviation to women, she was the first in line:

I signed up immediately. I wanted to be a fighter pilot like my dad.

But on that fateful Tuesday morning thirteen years ago, 26-year-old Lt. Penney was called upon to make the greatest sacrifice of her life…bring down United Airlines flight 93, no matter what. Even knowing that the pilot for one of the planes could be her own father, Penney was prepared to take them down —

It’s no secret that rural areas tend to be more conservative while urban enclaves are more liberal. But rather than simply generalize regional areas, what happens if we look at each town in every state to see which are the most conservative and liberal? The results may surprise you.

Political campaigns rely on data more than ever, and Clarity Campaign Labs provides the analytics campaign managers need to target the right people with those annoying fliers and phone calls.

The company has released an interesting tool called What Town Matches My Politics? After selecting your state, you can find which city best suits you politically by answering the following questions with “Agree,” “Disagree,” or “Don’t Include”…

I identify with the Democrats more so than the Republicans.

Abortion should be legal and accessible to all women.

I attend religious services regularly.

Climate change is an immediate concern that must be addressed.

There should be more restrictions on purchasing and carrying guns.

The government should reduce the deficit primarily by raising taxes rather than cutting services.

I prefer urban areas.

Using the raw data from Clarity and removing the questions about religious services and urban areas, Business Insider analyst Andy Kiersz produced a map showing which communities in each state are the most liberal and conservative.

Digging deeper, we looked up the populations for each town. The most populated liberal city is New York, with 8,337,000 people, while the least populated town is Chama, Colorado, with just 63 residents. The most populated conservative locale is Baker, Florida, with 7,157 residents, while just 42 people call the least populated community of Dickey, North Dakota, home.

Not surprisingly, the average population of the most liberal towns is 392,872, while the average size of the most conservative towns is just 1,080. Even using the median populations there’s an enormous gap, with a median population of 108,613 for the most liberal towns and just 530 for conservative municipalities.

We’ve split the map into four sections to make it easier to read the names of the cities and towns. Locales in red are conservative while those in blue are liberal…

Northeastern United States

Southeastern United States

While virtually every world map draws political borders around land masses, international law actually defines the first 200 nautical miles off the coast of any country as belonging to that nation as well. This is incredibly important, as any resources contained in the coastal stretches of these countries belong to them.

Incorporating these coastal areas, known as Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), architects Rafi Segal and Yonatan Cohen created a world map for openDemocracy to reflect the extended borders of every country in the world…

In other cases there are regions of joint control, such as the waters surrounding the Serranilla Bank and nearby Bajo Nuevo Bank in the Caribbean Sea. In this region, there’s a combination of shared rights and open disputes between Colombia, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United States over how exactly to administer several partially submerged coral reefs. Most disputes are related to tiny, desolate, uninhabited islands, as the nation governing these remote islands controls the surrounding waters.

All of these disputed regions are in constant flux as countries battle for control of the ocean’s resources, so their statuses are bound to change with time. However, this map, updated within the last year, offers some perspective for how much maritime territory each country actually controls.

Here are several close-ups of more crowded waters around the world, where the sea disappears in a mass of political boundaries…

Caribbean Sea

For comparison, here’s the map of the Caribbean Sea that we’re used to seeing…

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22 Words collects a blend of everything from the serious and creative to the silly and absurd. As your source for the crazy, curious, and comical side of the web, 22 Words can be counted on to share funny and fascinating viral content as well as more obscure (but equally interesting) pictures, videos, and more.